


How To Save A Life

by SpecialAgentFiction



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Death, Gen, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Khan, Reader-Insert, Spock & Reader Friendship, Therapy, no romance here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22175650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpecialAgentFiction/pseuds/SpecialAgentFiction
Summary: Emotional outbursts are dangerous to Vulcan’s who spend their lives bottling everything up and Spock is an expert at the art of stoicism. Reader is a Starfleet therapist tasked with helping him post-Khan and ‘Into Darkness’.
Relationships: Spock & Reader
Kudos: 5





	How To Save A Life

Days like today were the reason you got into this field. With the sun streaming through the wide, crystal clear glass of your office windows and a steaming cup of coffee in your hand, you felt slightly upbeat about the train wreck of a personnel file on your lap.

This guy was, in a single word, nightmarish. With mood swings that could level an entire city block (thanks super strength) that are triggered by extreme repression of emotion in favour of displaying opinions based solely on calculated risks and an utter belief in sound logic prevailing in every situation, perhaps a few sessions of Starfleet mandated therapy wasn’t the way to get through to this guy.

But you’d seen the security camera footage of him storming through San Francisco, phaser in hand, as he tracked the man who had managed to crack his glacial composure. The again, you’d also seen the feed of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s engine room and warp core entrance and though the conversation in question had been almost muted, you understood the power of the emotion running through your patient in the moments after.

“Doctor?” You sun around, your office chair giving you that little extra drama that you lived for. “Commander Spock is here.”

You smiled. “Send him in.”

Yes, this man was a walking time bomb and so far, you’d spent three sessions just staring at each other and making absolutely no progress on what you could only describe as the breakdown he’d suffered.

“Commander Spock.” You greeted the Vulcan as he crossed the threshold into your office, the door closing silently behind him.

“Doctor.” He inclined his head to you as he remained at the doorway, hands clasped behind his back with his uniform cap between his fingers. You gestured to the collection of seating options in the centre of the room as you closed his file and instead collected a PADD for fresh notes.

He hesitated momentarily, as he had on all three previous occasions before heading to the soft grey couch. You smiled to yourself and noted just how many senior officers chose the seat that almost matched their uniforms. You eyed the bean bags in the corner of the room and thanked the Lord that only young recruits took the less functional options available.

“How are you today?” You ask as you settle into the chair opposite him, legs crossed, and fingers interlaced crossed over your stomach casually.

He eyed your stance. “I am well.”

You smiled again. “I doubt that.” You let the screen of your PADD go dark as you realised today would be another session without progress. “Otherwise you wouldn’t keep coming here.”

“These sessions are, as you know, mandatory.”

“People who don’t want to talk to me tend to disappear after session one, Commander.” Your eyes settle on his ramrod straight back despite the alluringly comfiness of the cushions surrounding him. “And yet here _we_ are; session four.”

“I am not one to ignore an order, Doctor.” He tells you but its nothing that you haven’t already noted; unwavering belief in the chain of command. “And I have been ordered to visit you until you deem me fit to resume duty.”

You study him in the silence that follows. Your eyes flick over his immaculate uniform and the preciseness of how his cap was set on the coffee table between you; peak facing him, sides not quite flat – easy enough to grab and pace back on his head at a second’s notice. You watch his hands remain perfectly still in his lap and his knees remain tight together despite the space in which he could easily relax. You watch as he takes in every aspect of you in return and wonder if his assessment is at all similar to your own.

After a few minutes you break the silence. “Wanna try something new today?” You don’t wait for his reply as you set your PADD on the table and push from the chair. “Because I don’t know about you; but this is boring me.”

The quirk of his eyebrow tells you he is both intrigued and mildly unimpressed with you.

“C’mon.” You cross to the doorway and pull it open. “Or we can sit here for an hour and I’ll just add another six sessions to your file.”

He’s out of the chair like a shot and, as predicted, the cap is returned to his head within milliseconds a he follows you out of the office.

* * *

“Doctor, this is a gym.”

You’re stood opposite him on a blue training mat, your shoes kicked off and sleeves rolled up as you stare up at the imposing Vulcan. The only part of he had altered upon following you onto the squishy mat was again, the gentle settling of his cap on a bench. Otherwise he was still buttoned up to the chin with shiny shoes glaring up at you and threatening to reflect the underside of your chin if you mis-stepped.

“I’m aware.”

“Was it your intention to bring me here?”

“No Commander, this private space that is booked out under my name for the next three hours is somewhere I just happen to have on hand.”

His eyebrow lifts and he’s unimpressed again. You fight an eye-roll and cross to the weights stacked neatly to your left.

“Which one of these can you lift?” You ask without turning to him. “I mean, I understand that all of them would be a pretty easy lift but does one call out to you or…” You trail off as his hand closes around one and you make a mental note of his ability to move like a ghost. “Okay, great.” You move back to the mat and he follows, a dumbbell in one hand.

You both stare at each other for a second ad you hope this afternoon’s appointment is going to be easier.

“Throw it.”

“I don’t understand, Doctor.”

“Throw it.” You repeat. “These walls are reinforced, and I’ll bill Starfleet for any damage you do. So throw it.” He stares at you blankly and you realise he has perfect grounds to request another therapist. “I watched the recording of you and Khan on the waste shuttles; impressive jump by the way.” You tell him. “I saw the rage, I watched you beat him and I’m guessing the interruption didn’t help damp down those emotions. How often do you let yourself feel Commander?”

“I-”

“Never.” You answer for him. “In the last few years you’ve watched your mother die right in front of you, watched your planet get destroyed, become a member of a semi-extinct species, almost died I don’t know how many times, get removed from your ship, get placed back on your ship as part of a revenge mission, faced Klingons on their home-planet and to top it all off? Your best friend climbs inside a warp core and dies.” You watch him as his hand tightened on the weight. “And that’s the condensed version.”

You take a step back and gesture to the empty wall to your left.

“So work out some of those feelings and we’ll call it a day.”

His eyes moved from you to fix onto the dumbbell as he continued to comprehend what you were asking him to do.

“Look...” You sigh. “…the door locks and the walls are soundproofed; I don’t have to be here for you to do this if you’d prefer.” You gather your shoes in your hand. “But I will be back in three hours’ time. Whether I’ll be adding another three to the clock or dropping the key off at reception…” You shrug. “I don’t really care but I do care about your mental state and it’s clear we aren’t getting anywhere with all of this still sitting in your gut like a lead weight.”

You move to the door. “Just don’t hurt yourself.” You tell him and with one final glance to the unmoving man, you slip out of the room.

* * *

You spend the three hours catching up on paperwork and peeping at screen of your PADD where live footage from the camera in the corner of the room was being transmitted.

2 hours and 57 minutes in, you remotely delete the entire file from every system its stored on and make a series of incomprehensible notes in his file (no one needs to know exactly what went on down there) before slipping back into the private gym area.

“Better?”

You ask, taking in his rolled-up shirt sleeves and unbuttoned collar along with the discarded jacket laid meticulously beside his cap. Those two things were the only still intact items in the room and one look at his mussed-up hair and wild eyes told you all you needed.

“Three more hours it is then.”

* * *

You give him ten days until his next appointment and most of those are spent wondering if any of the patients laying across your couch (because they’ve watched too many movies) telling you how hard it is to form relationships in space will ever experience as much as you half-Vulcan, half-human enigma.

He chooses the couch again and his cap is within grabbing distance, his shoes make you flinch as the reflection you find in them startles you and you resolve to drink less coffee before bed. He is exactly the same and yet he is a completely different man.

The expression you’d expected when you sank into your chair, the one of total steel with an unwavering stare, was replaced with a soft complexion and the slightest trace of puffiness around his eyes. Maybe today you’d slip past those defences of his.

“How are you today?” You ask; legs crossed, and fingers interlaced crossed over your stomach casually.

“I am…” You fight a sigh as you prepare to lock your PADD – another session of sitting around then. “I am questioning what I could have done.”

Your head snaps from the window where your eyes were trying to decide what you could focus on to while away the remaining 58 minutes, and land on him.

“In regard to?”

“Saving my Captain…saving Jim.” You press record on your PADD and decide to not make notes today; to just have his words without analysis. “I wonder…where did I go wrong?”

“Forgive me Commander, but Captain Kirk is alive; is he not?”

“He is.” He leans back into the cushions and you wonder if he’ll take it as far as running a tired hand down his face in a gesture that was totally human. He doesn’t and just stares up at your ceiling. “But…” He trails off.

You watch as he begins to shut down in front of you and you scrabble for something that could keep his emotions open and a viable topic of conversation.

“When you first met Jim Kirk, what emotion did he elicit from you?”

His lips quirk upwards slightly. “Irritation.”

“And now?” You press.

His smile blooms and you settle into your armchair, the outside word forgotten as you remember your clear schedule this afternoon and decide to let him talk for as long as he needs.

“Tell me how you got from irritation.” You ask. “Tell me why Jim Kirk is the one who broke you.”


End file.
